


at last, sunrise

by desynchimminent (Caisar)



Series: asscreedevents 2018 [2]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Domestic Fluff, M/M, Pancakes, Tumblr: asscreedevents, for a given value of fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-21 02:41:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17034974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caisar/pseuds/desynchimminent
Summary: This is how it starts: Shaun makes them banana pancakes.





	at last, sunrise

**Author's Note:**

> Written for asscreedevents, day 5 prompt: family or home. Went with home.
> 
> I was actually writing a Gen "Desmond opens a bar and builds himself a home in New York" prequel for _sappy love confessions_ for this prompt, then I got stuck in a way that couldn't be fixed without angst and didn't want that, then my brain went _BANANA PANCAKES_ and... this. I don't know what the fuck this is, but it was fun to write.

This is how it starts: Shaun makes them banana pancakes.

 

* * *

 

They don’t really have routines or traditions—kind of hard to stick to something with their schedules from hell—but Sunday afternoons are reserved for lunch at that diner down the street from the apartment. Honestly, if left to him, he wouldn’t step foot in there twice, let alone every week; but Shaun insists that it’s his favorite spot in the whole city and that’s that.

Shaun had said the same thing about half a dozen places before, but who’s counting?

If there’s one good thing about the diner, though, it’s that the place is so empty all the time, they never have to rush to get a good table. Shaun is already three cups of coffee and ninety percent of his work into the day by the time he starts stirring, because that’s Shaun for you and because nothing short of a life emergency or far better coffee than they keep will wake Desmond up before the clock hits noon after a Saturday night. Shaun finishes the remaining ten percent while he showers and changes into the first clean clothes he finds; then they grab their coats and their wallets and step out.

“How much you wanna bet that this place will be gone the next time we come down?” he asks once they slide into their seats; not a single other person in sight, including the staff.

Shaun frowns at him over the menu.

He plays with his phone as they wait, scrolling through his Animus feed until the waitress notices them. They have their usual order by now: The biggest breakfast spread they could possibly eat, with orange juice for Shaun and banana pancakes for him, which Shaun usually ends up sneaking bits of.

Today, though, Shaun barely even looks their way, sipping at his juice and nibbling at whatever’s nearest.

“Hey,” he says. Shaun looks up from torturing a slice of cheese. “What’s bothering you?”

“Nothing.”

He puts his fork aside. “Shaun.”

“It really is nothing,” Shaun repeats. “It’s just—I’ve been thinking about the flat,” he confesses, licking his lips. “I don’t want to sell it.”

So _that_ ’s what Shaun’s been brooding about. He should’ve guessed. “Then don’t,” he says simply. “It’s yours; you don’t have to sell it if you don’t want to.”

“What else would I even do with it?”

“Rent it out?” he suggests. Shaun pulls a face. “No, think about it for a second. It’s shit, yeah, but it’s basically new after all those repairs and everything—and it’s a short enough commute from the school. Can’t be too hard to find students looking for a place.”

“I don’t know,” Shaun hedges, grimacing at the cheese. He ends up pushing the plate away, resting his elbows on the table and crossing his arms instead. “I’m not sure if I’d want to deal with tenants. Besides, what if they turn out to be my students? That would be terribly unethical.”

He shrugs. “Don’t rent to history majors, then. You could just ask what they’re studying before you make a decision.”

“Sure, but what about my elective courses? I can’t possibly give them a list of classes _not_ to take.”

“Then don’t rent to students,” he says, grabbing his fork again. Shaun gives him a look. “Shaun, seriously, you’re worrying too much. Just let it sit empty for a while; you can figure out what to do with it later. _We_ can figure it out.”

Shaun hides his smile behind his glass.

 

* * *

 

No, no, backtrack a little. _This_ is how it starts: Shaun almost burns his kitchen down.

Shaun can’t fucking cook, is the thing. It’s not his personal opinion—that kind of thing stops being an _opinion_ once a new pot or pan starts becoming a regular expense. There are enough cookbooks on the shelves to suggest that Shaun had done his best to learn; he’s just “born without an innate understanding of when food is done”.

When he walks into Shaun’s kitchen and sees the ingredients on the counter, he’s understandably nervous.

“It’s just microwave mug cake,” Shaun says, the tips of his ears flaming red. “Even I can’t mess up microwave mug cake.”

By some miracle—more likely, because there’s a timer on the microwave—he doesn’t. He miscalculates and they have to clean a layer of “cake” out of the microwave after, but the cakes turn out perfectly edible, if a little too sweet.

“Careful, Shaun,” he can’t help teasing, licking his spoon clean. “You learn to cook, I’m gonna stay.”

Something in Shaun’s small, pleased smile stays with him for days.

 

* * *

 

On Sunday, he jumps awake what feels like two seconds after he put his head on the pillow, Shaun’s ringtone blaring somewhere in the bed.

He pats around until he finds it between the pillow and the headrest.

“Where are you?” Shaun asks, an edge to his tone that he is way too sleepy to read.

“Home?” He rolls onto his back, switching ears. “I just woke up, why?”

By the silence that follows, that’s the wrong answer.

He pushes himself up to a sitting position, trying to force _some_ wakefulness into his brain. “Shaun?”

“You said you’d come over for lunch.”

He did? “I did?”

“You did,” Shaun confirms. “You said you’d be here in twenty—well over an hour ago.”

An hour—

 _Shit_. Oh shit oh shit oh shit. The other call. Fuck.

Shaun laughs—there isn’t a drop of cheer in the sound. “You were still half-asleep, weren’t you.”

He runs a hand down his face, rubbing his eyes with two fingers. That explains the clipped answers. “I’m really sorry. Let me take a shower; I’ll be there in twenty, promise.”

“Go back to bed, Des. Everything got cold anyway.”

He pauses in the middle of stepping out of the bed. “You _cooked_ us lunch?”

Shaun laughs again, this one somewhat closer to a real one. “More like _tried_ to. I’m fairly sure most of it is fit for human consumption.” He sighs. “I mean it, go back to sleep,” he adds, softer now. Disappointment is practically radiating off the phone, though. “You sounded coherent earlier; I didn’t realize you were barely awake. We can have lunch another time.”

He is already halfway to the bathroom. “Twenty minutes,” he promises. “I’ll bring orange juice.”

 

* * *

 

He makes it there in eighteen. They use the other two to reheat pastry in the microwave. It’s a terrible idea.

 

* * *

 

Slightly burned or undercooked (sometimes both) food start finding their way into their diets.

Shaun mocks his growing belly exactly three times until Desmond points out his matching one. Shaun switches to low-calorie recipes after that.

 

* * *

 

Birthday dinner is when the fire department shows up.

He isn’t with Shaun when it happens, which is the worst part of the entire shitfest. They had planned to celebrate Desmond’s birthday together, but then Edward decided to get drunk behind the counter—on a Friday night, no less—and he couldn’t find anyone to cover the shift at the last minute; he had no choice but to pull up his sleeves and get behind the counter.

He bides his time until he can call Shaun, his phone burning a hole in his back pocket. By the time he can slip out, he has four missed calls.

“Shaun, I’m so sorry,” he says as soon as Shaun picks up. “I didn’t forget it, I _swear_ I didn’t, I got held up—”

“ _Desmond_ ,” Shaun chokes.

Then the sirens register.

 

* * *

 

“I just answered the door,” Shaun is still muttering in the cab, his knuckles white around the blanket he had insisted that he didn’t need. “I don’t know how it happened. I wasn’t gone a _minute_.”

He hugs him tighter and presses a kiss on his hairline. Shaun still smells faintly of smoke.

 

* * *

 

The damage to the apartment isn’t as bad as it could’ve been. The cabinetry is done for, as well as the ceiling, all appliances except the fridge that managed to stay only slightly charred somehow and anything plastic or wood Shaun had on that side of the counter; but all things considered, they are lucky—or so they are told.

“Luck doesn’t pay for the damage,” Shaun grumbles once they’re out of earshot, fishing for his keys in his many pockets. Desmond is inclined to agree with the insurance guys there, but the last thing either of them needs is Shaun biting his head off for something that isn’t even his fault for once, so he keeps his mouth shut and waits for Shaun to unlock the car.

Inside, Shaun drops heavily onto the seat, leans back and—keeps sitting, the keys dangling from his loose fingers as he stares out of the window. The sight is… _wrong_. Defeated isn’t something Shaun ever _is_.

Shaun drops his head back and closes his eyes. “Tell me it’ll be all right?”

He reaches for Shaun’s hand in his lap and squeezes. Some of the tension visibly slips from Shaun's shoulders when he finally exhales. “It’s gonna be all right,” he promises. “We’ll figure it out.”

Shaun’s smile is more of a bitter curl, but it’s there. The weight in his chest lets up a little.

He squeezes his hand again, then reaches for his own seatbelt. “Come on, let’s go have lunch. There’s this diner down my place that I’ve been meaning to try.”

 

* * *

 

Things are… tense, for the next while. By and large, Shaun’s house isn’t unfit for living in, but there’s something about the thought of Shaun sitting in his apartment with his ruined, empty kitchen all alone that he can’t handle; so he takes to coaxing Shaun into staying over when he can and bringing various takeout to Shaun’s place when he can’t.

Shaun doesn’t take it well.

“I know you mean well,” he says when Desmond shows up at his door for the fifth time in as many days, his tone that forced, familiar calm that it gets when he’s trying to keep himself from lashing out. “But I don’t need _coddling_ , Desmond.”

“This is not coddling,” he argues.

Shaun just stares at him in clear disbelief, lips pressed thin.

He takes a deep breath to push down the already simmering irritation in his stomach, the worst part of his inheritance. He’s had a shit enough day as it is; he doesn’t want to end it with a shouting match of all things. “Look, I—maybe _I_ need the reassurance, okay?”

Shaun blinks. Blinks again, the sharp edges of his face going slack. “Oh.”

He can’t help a sharp laugh. “Yeah, _oh_. You were in a fire and I wasn’t even there; how do you think _I_ feel, jackass? Maybe I need to come home and make sure that you’re fine.”

Shaun is entirely too silent, eyes flicking around on his face. Whatever he’s looking for, Desmond can’t tell, but he honestly couldn’t care less right now. If, after all this time, that he worries about Shaun comes as a surprise—or worse, if it’s a fucking _issue_ —so be it. He’s not doing this today.

He drops himself onto the couch, rubbing at his face. His heart is still racing, stomach churning with restrained anger and the sting of disappointment; anywhere else, he’s just drained of all energy. He’s not even sure he could pick himself up and leave if Shaun told him to.

The couch dips next to him, then a warm hand on his leg. He doesn’t look up.

“Let me change,” Shaun whispers.

 

* * *

 

They never talk about moving in together; it sort of just _happens_.

After the-argument-that-wasn’t-really-an-argument, Shaun starts making an effort to stick around. It's not even subtle, is the best part; it’s Shaun deciding to “drop by after work” three times a week, impromptu Sunday afternoon lunches together, well-pressed clothes starting to find their way into his closet and the drawers that he empties for Shaun without either of them ever commenting on it.

If he steals a little something or two whenever he’s the one dropping by, well.

Once summer rolls around and Shaun isn’t buried under the mountain of end-of-semester paperwork, they start chipping at the repairs in Shaun’s place. The damage was mostly contained in the kitchen section, but getting the floorboards replaced means they’ll have to empty out the entire living room, too; they might as well repaint the walls and the ceiling while at it.

Only, as they find out, Shaun is the absolute worst when it comes to choosing _anything_ for his precious little apartment and the whole color matching thing goes right over Desmond’s head—he has to drag Shaun out of the store and into the nearest place that promises food before they get into an argument in the middle of Home Depot.

“I wish the fire had gone through everything. At least I could’ve just given it up as lost cause.”

He rolls his eyes, trying to fold his pancake into four with his and Shaun’s forks. “No you wouldn’t.”

Shaun sighs into his empty cup. “No, I wouldn’t. I love that flat, cursed as it may be.” He glances at him over his glasses, licking his lips. “I never thanked you for running about with me these past weeks. Or—for anything, really.”

He shrugs a shoulder. “Where else would I be?”

He catches only a flash of Shaun’s smile before Shaun turns to signal for more coffee. It’s almost enough to make up for the smell of polished wood and scented candle stuck in his nose.

 

* * *

 

All in all, it takes a little under three months to get the apartment fixed up. Everything they got fixed turned up another thing to fix and even he was ready to torch it all down near the end, but as they sit on the—thoroughly scrubbed—floor and drink good wine out of coffee mugs, he decides that maybe it was all worth it in the end.

 

* * *

 

The next week, they come back to pack up what little of Shaun’s personal belongings were left in the apartment, long past the pretense that Shaun is staying only until the repairs are done. Shaun is loath to part with his desk, but they couldn’t hope to make space for it in the already crammed apartment, not with the boxes over boxes of Shaun’s book and movie collections waiting beside the door.

On second thought, they leave the cookbooks behind.

 

* * *

 

They don’t really have routines or traditions—kind of hard to stick to something with their schedules from hell—but Sunday afternoons are reserved for lunch at that diner down the street from the apartment. Shaun is already three cups of coffee and ninety percent of his work into the day by the time he starts stirring, because that’s Shaun for you and because nothing short of a life emergency or far better coffee than they keep will wake Desmond up before the clock hits noon after a Saturday night. Shaun finishes the remaining ten percent while he showers and changes into the first clean clothes he finds; then they grab their jackets and their wallets and step out.

Only, the diner’s closed down.

The—holy shit, the diner’s _actually_ closed down. What the fuck.

Beside him, Shaun is staring at the notice a little like he did his old apartment the last time they’ve been there, with longing and loss that he hides quickly when he notices him looking. He knew the guy was sentimental—obviously—but he hadn’t realized that the diner _mattered_.

Too late now.

Shaun clears his throat. “All the better, I suppose,” he says, his lips curling into that wry, bitter smile. “You hated that place anyway.”

Yeah, well. Maybe he didn’t, not really.

He wraps an arm around Shaun’s shoulders and pulls him closer. Shaun lets him. “We’ll find somewhere else,” he promises.

Shaun just shakes his head. “Let’s go home. I don’t feel particularly hungry anymore.”

 

* * *

 

Because at least one of them is supposed to be a reasonable adult—and because a hungry Shaun isn’t exactly his favorite thing to deal with—they make a detour for much needed grocery shopping, stocking up on breakfast food that they never really had reason to keep before.

Once back in the apartment, though, he finds that he doesn’t have much appetite, either.

Everything placed in the fridge, they sit in front of the TV, zapping through sports shows and reruns until they settle on a baking show that neither of them really care for.

He gets up for the bathroom for three seconds and comes back to find a history documentary playing. That’s that.

 

* * *

 

“We should probably eat.”

“We should,” Shaun agrees.

 

* * *

 

“This is ridiculous,” he groans. “We can’t just sit in front of the TV the whole day; we’ll lose our minds.”

“What else are we supposed to do?” Shaun grouses without even looking away from the TV. “Without the diner, there’s no diner lunch. No diner lunch, no post-diner lunch walk. No post-diner lunch walk, no post-walk nap. It’s simple enough.”

Oh god, hanger is setting in faster than he expected. “You know we can have lunch without the diner, right? We’re actually capable of preparing lunch ourselves—you even cooked us one before.”

“Do you really want a house fire so early in the day?”

“I didn’t say I’d let you near the stove.” He bumps his shoulder on Shaun’s. “Come on. I’ll make the pancakes; you can set the table. Then we’ll take our post-lunch walk—and _then_ we’ll have our post-walk nap. I’m not letting you sit here and mope.”

Shaun gives him a side glare. “I don’t _mope_.”

He snorts, pushing himself up from the couch. Fuck, his ass is probably flat at this point. “You obviously need food if that’s the best you can come up with.” He fixes his clothes, then extends a hand to Shaun. “Come on.”

Shaun rolls his eyes, but lets him pull him up.

**Author's Note:**

> No kitchens were harmed in the making of this fic. No banana pancakes were made, either, sadly.


End file.
